Brother, can you spare a....burger?

We rarely visit the drive thru anymore but today as we headed out to errands Mike
wanted a burger. A burger it is. After a few mind changes, we pulled away and ended up with three one-dollar cheeseburgers that we thought we'd told the girl to take off the order. "I thought you told her to remove them?" I asked him as I looked into the bag. He shrugged and I set that bag aside. An bit later we were wrapping up our run and waiting at the stoplight was a man on the side of the road with a sign. "Laborer--I need work to eat."

We went through the intersection and Mike turned to head back. "Just hang with me, God told me to do something." We headed back and I was dispatched into Jack in the Box to get a large drink. We headed back out to the intersection, stopped and I rolled down the window as Mike motioned the guy over to the truck.

"I don't have a job for you but I can feed you, brother. Will this be OK?" He gave me the bag of extra burgers and together with the soft drink we handed it all to the man.

Some people you can look at and see that they haven't spent a night outside in their life yet they stand on the side of the road, grunged up to look pitiful, hopeless, and destitute. As a rule we don't hand out money to panhandlers, but we have been led several times to share extra food with people. As the guy came close to the truck, it was easy to tell that he had, indeed, walked a very rough road and he gratefully took the bag and the drink

"Brother, thank you. This means the world. It will definitely help." He headed over to an area away from the corner and began unwrapping one of the burgers.

When I realized that the three extra burgers were not a mistake, but saw God's hand in their appearance in our bag, I grinned. They'd been paid for, but what was a mystery to US was simply how He does His business.

As he's struggled with the illness that nearly killed him last year, there's always an element of "Why? Why this cross to carry, Lord?" Admittedly Mike asked God to use him for the Kingdom, and truthfully he would have willingly chosen ANYTHING other then necrotizing fasciitis, but it is what it is and this is where God has chosen to use him. Before his knee injuries and the bout with nec/fac, he would ask me, "How is it that God talks to you and not to me?"

"Well, it's not like he literally speaks to me. More of a leading, or a "knowledge" of something He wants me to do."

"I ask Him all the time to speak to my heart and I hear nothing."

"Be patient. When He's ready to reach you, you will know."

Over the past year or so, as he's been down more, not so distracted by the busyness of the world, he is discerning more and more God speaking to his spirit, to his heart. I am thankful that he heeds the prompting of the Holy Spirit and grateful that Ali got to see her father in his obedience. We had a good discussion with her about why she is never to approach anyone on her own, but she saw her father reaching out to share a meal and the love of God with a stranger and I couldn't be more proud of him.